Talk:The God Delusion/Archive 3

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Please visit criticism of religion

If Dawkins have arguements against religion that is not current listed in the article criticism of religion, could you please create a new subsection and add them in. Thank you. Ohanian 07:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticism Section is POV

The section as it stands is all negative commentary on the book. That's hardly NPOV. I don't know that we need more than a simple link to external reviews. If there's going to be a criticism section it should be balanced. A well written section shouldn't just have a list of comments, but integrated text of commentary from all angles. I'm removing what's there as hopelessly POV. Spark* 22:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that what Criticism is? I have tried to make it as much/little PoV as the main section, using words like "argues", "suggests" etc... And most of this section was not done by me BTW. No reason why you shouldn't add a "Praise" section if you think it appropriate. But we are encouraged to improve, not delete. NBeale 23:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Deletion is improvement in this case. I'm not deleting it because it was done by you, I'm deleting it because it's POV. It needs to be balanced. As it stands it is hopelessly one sided. It invites a clash and turns the section into a battleground. As we have a "reviews" section, I'd ask why have an additional "Criticism Section"? If it's going to be there it needs to be balanced. Spark* 00:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Giving criticsm is not restricted to pointing out incompletness, errors in facts or flaws in logic. Criticism could and should, when applicable, also point out positive aspects of a work that has survived the process, so to speak. I believe that the section as it stands now fails to take this into consideration. EthicsGradient 11:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
A "criticism" section should include both criticism and appreciation. The current section is totally unbalanced. Laurence Boyce 16:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, a criticism section should reflect prevalent reactions to the work. It would be POV for Wikipedia to present a 50/50 perspective when such a balance does not actually exist. Shoehorn 23:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Let's drop the Eagleton reference. Eagleton has roughly the same arguments as Cornwell, and Cornwell is a serious historian of religion. Maybe David Quinn, too; he's basically a pundit. --John Nagle 07:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the section again. It isn't balanced and it clearly doesn't reflect prevalent reactions to the work. If you want to add it sandbox it until balanced. *Spark* 12:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry this is the work of numerous editors. Please learn to improve things rather than cutting them out. I've had a go at meeting your concerns, but I'm sure you can improve the section further, quoting from supportive reviewers. NBeale 14:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Trying to find a win-win solution to the dispute... It seems perfectly reasonable to have a section which gives some details of responses to the book. Given the subject matter of the book, it also seems perfectly reasonable to divide the list into (a) responses of religious people and (b) responses of non-religious people. What I don't like (and will shortly remove, if not beaten to it) is the further division of (b) into praise and hostile/equivocal. That smacks to me of sneakily suggesting that the hostile has the last laugh, because (a) it comes second and (b) it's longer! I am wondering - has any religious person said anything good about the book? If so, then I suspect the people (person?) adding material to this section is likely to omit to mention it... More seriously, I am also rather concerned that it is of course the case that a newly published controversial book will have attracted more brickbats than posies, more attack than support (opponents always shout louder and sooner than supporters). So whatever we do to try to keep it NPOV, it's almost bound to end up slanted towards those who disagree with the book. Another concern is one I have also voiced elsewhere - that anyone who picks a small hole in the book (e.g. Eagleton saying that Dawkins makes a bit of an error about Northern Ireland) is liable to find themselves enlisted in the Dawkins-bashing army, and by implication is presented as if they are saying that they disagree with the overall thrust of Dawkins' argument. Anyway, about that win-win solution... A combination of Swift's modest proposal and the judgment of Solomon, perhaps. I propose that the good people who disagree with Dawkins gather material ONLY for the section headed "Responses by religious nutcases reviewers" and the Dawkins acolytes rest of us add stuff ONLY to the section headed "Responses by non-religious reviewers". At least for the moment. Ah well, at least I tried! Snalwibma 15:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That's why such division makes it a battleground. NBeale's made the section worse. He's done exactly what he was asked not to do. A section on critical reaction is not a bulleted list of points, it should be an integrated text of balanced information. See featured literary articles for examples of good composition. He must be kidding with an entry like: "The Economist praised the book to the skies ("Everyone should read this book"). Polly Toynbee in The Guardian was equally fulsome." *Spark* 15:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed I hadn't spotted that - but on reflection it does look rather malicious. The Guardian slur! You know, lefties and atheists read the Guardian, so we don't need to take any notice of what it says. Why, if the Guardian says it's good, it must in fact be bad! (who, me, paranoid?) Snalwibma 15:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I think Snalwibma has offered a pretty good way forward. My main concern was to build rather than delete, and I see the point about the classification. However some of the responses by non-religious reviewers are very hostile so unless we can find some non-religious anti-Dawkins editors it may be difficult for strong supporters of Dawkins to give a fair summary of what Eagleton etc.. says. Let's work together and see what happens. NBeale 15:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear - I didn't mean to gain the approval of NBeale! Seriously, though... I have just (wonder of wonders!) checked a source, and have actually read the review by Marek Kohn in the Independent. My conclusion? That the way this review is represented in the Wikipedia article is so utterly distorted that it should be deleted at once. And probably the whole section. Marek Kohn is in fact enthusiastic about the book, but (as all reviewers do) makes one or two points about issues where Dawkins may have got it wrong. To pick out only those phrases from what he says and pass it off as a negative review is a serious misrepresentation. Snalwibma 17:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree, but by all means add the things in the Kohn review that you think make it +ve. The article merely says he's a non-religious reviewer. NBeale 21:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
After the recent change dividing up two lists of religious and non-religious (dominantly negative) responses to TGD, the Criticism-section seem even more POV. It seems that mentioning The Economist's favorable review in the passing and then going on to systematically and at some lenght list negative opinions by category goes out of its way to hack away on the book. This is not suitable for Wikipedia at all. EthicsGradient 16:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
As is, it's simple an expansion of the reviews section, I see no reason for it. The Brown "review" isn't a review at all, it's a comment on one statement in the book. There is a review behind the reference, but the text in this article focuses on that one point. The John Cornwell section can be trimmed to state he notes a lack of religious references. Either way, it shouldn't be a bulleted list. There's fourteen reviews in the "Reviews" section. Why did only the negative ones make it into the "Criticism" section?
This addition by NBeale is nothing short of ridiculous: "Critical reaction to this book has been mixed. Christian reviewers have been highly critical, and some atheists have praised the book to the skies ("everyone should read this book" - The Economist). Other reviewers, whilst not themselves religious, have been equivocal or hostile." . That last part was changed to "or in some cases unimpressed", which is still ridiculous. *Spark* 18:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Well maybe we can agree on this: some reviews are positive, some negative and some mixed. Let's try to classify all 14 reviews and then summarise each, using quotes from the actual reviews, with the understanding that the Pro-Dawkins editors get the +ves, the Antis get the -ves, and that we each try to do the mixed. Of the reviews I would classify them as:
+ve:Bakewell, Economist, Myers, Tickell
-ve:Eagleton, Brown, Midgley, Malik, McGrath, Cornwell
mixed: Krauss, Kohn, Lin,
Don't know about Nagel, it's Subs only (but i guess it's -ve if it's new Republic) What do people think? NBeale 21:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the section is hopeless and needs to be removed completely. There's no reason to summarize 14 reviews. There are links to the reviews, readers can read them. Your opening statement in the criticism section is a divisive overgeneralization ("some christians hated it, some atheists loved it, everyone else was mixed") that is not in the least encyclopedic or even meaningful. Please read what featured literary articles have done with balanced criticism sections. *Spark* 00:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Well User:FeloniousMonk seems to be satisfied with his version of the sentence. Let's work with that, try to be constructive and make a better section rather than scattering "ridiculous", "hopeless" etc.. (PS I've corrected format and double-class of Lin in my suggested classification above) NBeale 06:27, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Because someone doesn't delete text immediately doesn't mean they agree with it. Can you please refrain from preaching (word used intentionally)? You're someone pushing POV, hard. Putting a statement like "other reviewers...equivocal or hostile" is so far off the mark both factually and for an encyclopedic text that "ridiculous" clearly applies. I suggest you do a little reading on proper article composition in WP. WP:NPOV for one, particularly the "undue weight" section, as well as articles from Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Literature for good examples. And then, as previously requested and standard practice for an article that generates controversy, discuss in talk before adding something. *Spark* 11:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
If a v experienced user like User:Feloniousmonk edits a short sentence I think we can take it that he is happy with the sentence that results. I really must ask you to stop deleting things you don't agree with and start making some constructive contributions and improvements. You have already done two reverts on this article please don't do a third. I'm sure you have something positive to contribute. NBeale 15:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the lead paragraph to this section because it is pointless and contains detail which is more suited to the following paragraphs. I hope this shows how, by removing detail, an article can be improved. Please don't mindlessly revert. Yours etc --KaptKos 16:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

We need to be NPoV in the description

eg We cant say of the first three classical proofs of the Existence of God that he "demonstrates" that they are vacuuous. That takes a position on whether his argument succeeds. (Frankly I think that he "demonstrates" that he has little or no understanding of the relevant philosophical issues, which is that basis of Terry Eagleton's strong criticism - I was genuinely disappointed when I got to that section because it was so lightweight. Others may think that it demonstrates that he has an unparalleled mastery of the subject. WikiPedia cannot take a position on this, so a neutral word is needed. NBeale 22:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Summarise Dawkins on the arguments for existence of God, using his own words as far as possible

I think it would be possible to summarise the logical points he makes about the "arguments for existence of God", using his own words as far as possible. Would anyone like to make a sandbox for this? NBeale 09:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as you said above, that section of the book is very superficial. I don't think it is worth the effort to work through his refutations, what is far more notable is how dismissive he is of theology. --Merzul 02:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Misrepresenting Reviews

The Brown "review" entry in the article talks about one item in the book (suicide bombing), but that's not the main focus of Brown's review if you read the reference. It is not representative of the review in the least, which is mainly about persistence of religion.

The Cornwell text here is a total misrepresentation. Cornwell does not say "religious reading", he says "philosophy of religion [citations]". The statement "Cornwell argues that, ... his bibliography cites numerous sources for evolutionary theory" is a complete falsehood. Cornwell says no such thing.

The division of reviews between "religious" and "others" is a disruptive one. Are the people who reviewed it positively not religious? Do we have information regarding their religious beliefs? Cited?

What makes these particular reviews more notable than other reviews linked? I'll repeat that I believe this section as is doesn't belong in the article at all. *Spark* 13:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the religious/non-religious reviewers distinction is wrong, for many of the reasons you cite. I think the correct classifications are: highly positive, highly negative, and mixed. I'd suggest that we work together to improve the article so that eventually each of the reviews is represented, at which point some groupings by theme will emerge. This will allow the reader to get a NPoV idea of what the various critics are saying, without having to read all 14 reviews themselves. We might also want to limit ourselves to reviewers with Wikipedia articles, and to avoid describing who they are any further - users can click if they want to. NBeale 14:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Please remember not to edit another editor's entries on a talk page. Regarding your +/- classifications, that would be clearly POV and potentially WP:OR. *Spark* 15:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Representing Reviews

I see what you mean about +/-/= possibly being OR (though I would have thought it pretty easy to reach consensus) So I suggest: 1. We have 3 categories:

2. Each review is summarised in the form X, writing in Y, says "A", "B" and "C" but also "D", "E" and "F", with all of these being direct quotes from the review. NBeale 19:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm failing to see how Prospect can be considered an Established Authoritative Journal. The other three are known worldwide. Prospect is an opinion magazine with a fraction of any of their circulation numbers. See how this becomes POV again? I'm not certain how many ways this can be explained. If people want to read a series of direct quotes from each review, they can go read the reviews. *Spark* 19:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Come on - be bold is the principle. If we act like this anything which is not a quote is PoV and anything which is "they can go and read [the original]s." But some of these require subscriptions, and the point of Wikipedia is to summarise verifiable facts. Was this the Prospect that voted him "top British intellectual" BTW :-) We can legitimately exercise editorial judgement. How about:
* Notable magazines (suggested order: Nature, Economist, New Scientist, LRB, Prospect, NR, Harvard Crimson
* Notable newspapers
* other reviews by Notable reviewers NBeale 22:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Well I've had a first cut at this. But not time yet to summarise all the other reviews. Other Editors might want a go. NBeale 16:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
The new arrrangement of reviews looks good. Thanks. --John Nagle 18:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

Are there any responses from Dawkins or other notable people regarding the specific examples of criticism noted? It seems a bit one-sided to just let each criticism stand without any counter-point from Dawkins or anyone. This may be the fault of Dawkins if he hasn't responded; I'm not sure. Does anyone know if he has replied to any of these critics? -Neural 14:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section has now been renamed to 'Response' by an anonymous user. It seemed to me that we agreed that criticism could include both postive and negative feedback. I would support reverting it to 'Criticism', because criticism implies a more rigourous process than responses. And there has been some work done trying to pick the most important and thorough critics, right? Besides, a lot of other books have criticism-sections rather than response-sections. We shouldn't treat TGD any differently. Any views on this? EthicsGradient 10:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I was confused by the structure, having 'response' summarising the reviews and then 'reviews' with the web links. So I have labeled the section as just 'reviews', which is what it contains. I think 'criticism' would be a bit misleading because many of the reviews are quite positive (and 'criticism' in common usage is negative). Poujeaux 14:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Some of the feedback is indeed positive, but it could (and I think should) still be labelled 'Criticism'. See my views above and also the discussion concerning the Criticism and POV section. As long there is a balance in the section that reflects the 'real-world' prevalence of negative and positive critique, I'm happy. Anyway, welcome to TGD article. EthicsGradient 15:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The third paragraph of the response/criticism section ('Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton...') appears quite long compared to all the other paragraphs. I suggest we cut it down to 3-4 lines, and will do so unless anyone else can think of good reasons not to. EthicsGradient 12:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, excellent, could you try to do something about the paragraph summarising Andrew Brown, it is quite a mess. I will move the last sentence a bit forward as it is about atheism violence, but then still the objection to free speech needs copy-editing and my English is very weak. --Merzul 16:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I've actually slightly expanded the section on Eagleton - this is a very elaborate and important review by one of the most important literary crtics/theorists of the past generation, and I think it is important to convey what he actually argues. Metamagician3000 13:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Though the detail on this one review is starting to get over the top by now. Metamagician3000 10:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I've just pruned it back a bit. Seems to me that quoting Eagleton is fine, but going on to say how others (McGrath, yet again! Has the man nothing better to do than criticise Dawkins?) picked up Eagleton's bons mots is a step too far. Snalwibma 10:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, makes ssnse. Metamagician3000 23:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Repetitive use of 'suggest'

Reading the article it seems to rely too much upon the word 'suggest', both when describing Dawkins and his critics' views. This is probably because editors would like the text to sound as dispassionate as possible, but I don't think it reads well. Might we exchange some of the 'suggests' with other words such as 'holds' or 'maintains'? If other editors think this is a good idea, I'll happily have a go at it. EthicsGradient 18:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. I'd even support using the word 'argues' from time to time. Edhubbard 20:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I went ahead and did some editing on the first part. If nobody objects to those changes, I'll run through the whole text. There are still some 'argues' there. I like 'em, too. EthicsGradient 12:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Redundant sections

The section "Chapters" seems extraordinarily redundant, given the "Synopsis" section which immediately preceded it. I suppose the titles could be seen as new content, a phrase to summarize the material in the Synopsis section, but then why isn't it there, or even before that section? So I propose to splice the titles into the text of the Synopsis section.

Now these epigraphs. I am not sure how they contribute to this article, other than snarky pushing of Dawkins' POV. Could anyone provide a reason to keep them? Baccyak4H 20:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I think you were right to remove them; they were a relic from an earlier stage. I don't much like that Douglas Adams quote either. Or rather I do like it, but I'm not sure we should be quoting Adams at length in a Dawkins article even if it was one of his favourite quotes. But I think others may disagree. Laurence Boyce 21:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, the step of removing the epigraphs was quite bold, so I left the source but just commented it out for convenience. Although it seemed obvious to me that they didn't belong.
RE the Adams quote. Someone above stated that Dawkings felt he could not express his sentiment better than Adams did, or something similar. If we can verify this, I think the quote should stay (although see no need to source Dawkins' reason for including it in the article proper, and perhaps it could be moved elsewhere...). If not, I am not sure, but lean for removing, as the article content which it supports ("He maintains that religion is given a privileged immunity against criticism which it does not deserve") is pretty clear. Not sure I'd take it upon myself to delete or revert back in either case though. Baccyak4H 03:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I vote to remove the Adams quote. The quote is (for me) a memorable part of the book and does make Dawkins' point in an informal, funny way--but seems out of place here. The "privileged immunity" sentence says the same thing well, and with more compression. --Barte 02:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
"If we can verify this, I think the quote should stay". It's on page 20, under "Undeserved Respect". --John Nagle 17:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Current state of the article (end of November 2006)

Let's take a look at what this article looks like so far. Reading the above talk, I'm quite impressed at the compromise that has been reached. So I wonder what people think about the current state. In particular, please comment on neutrality, but I also have some questions about things to do:

  • Does anybody dare summarize the reception of the book? The reviews section lacks a lead paragraph. :)
  • The general intro of the article should probably be expanded, maybe place this book in the context of 2006 atheist bestsellers.
  • Is everybody happy with the current reviews section? Maybe one or two positive reviews could be added: the last subsection only has a notable Christian commentator.
  • Is the current structure fair? The synopsis only summarizes the book's arguments, so is a separate criticism section needed (in addition to the reviews) to balance it?

Again, I'm mainly asking for opinions about neutrality. Much has changed since this was last discussed. --Merzul 02:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This might be a sign of boundless naïvety, but the article now seems reasonably neutral to me. Granted, there is an overweight of negative responses, but this probably reflects the intitial reception of the book. As for a separate criticsm-section, it might turn the article into a battleground. At the very least, that would inflate the article which to me seems attractive in its terseness. The points you list above are good, and I will contribute as time allows. --EthicsGradient 12:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I dislike the structure of the current reviews section. I cannot offer a better format at the moment. Previously some of the reviews were misrepresented, but I haven't read and checked them all, so I don't know if that's still the case. A few more positives wouldn't hurt. Considering the sales of the book I find it difficult to believe its general reception has not been a positive one. *Spark* 12:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It's possible. Just as a badly reviewed movie can still achieve strong box office. And here, beginning even with the title, prevailing sensibilities have been offended.--Barte 13:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The only section with a clear bias is the notable commentator section. But we should probably write down the assessment of the reviews, I will create a section here in the talk for it here... --Merzul 01:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)